


we missed the exit miles ago

by villagepsychic



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Growing Up Together, M/M, Melancholy, Non-Linear Narrative, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21797257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villagepsychic/pseuds/villagepsychic
Summary: Karma… is the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences. Destiny and fate is inescapable… what goes around will always come around. The good is the good, and the bad will be the bad. What determines the side of good and bad one gets stems from their actions and their life force.(In which Dimitri is on the run from himself, and Felix is the voice that haunts him in the confessions room of the church Dimitri's hiding out in.)
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 5
Kudos: 59
Collections: 2019 Dimilix Holiday Exchange





	we missed the exit miles ago

**Author's Note:**

> fulfilling this prompt for my recipient was interesting because i think it forced me to adopt a different writing style that i really hope worked out. nothing like a good old-fashioned character study to change your perspective on things
> 
> nonetheless, this was actually sort of difficult to write, so i hope my recipient & everyone else reading this can enjoy as much as possible!
> 
> [june — florence + the machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sosmd6RjeA0)

`and those heavy days in june, when love became an act of defiance`

No one is in the church at this ungodly hour, which is why Dimitri almost has a meltdown when the confessional room’s door suddenly opens. For a moment, he wants to believe it’s Hilda, here to pick him up a little early, but it’s deadly silent for a few moments.

There are cameras, he tells himself as he hears steps slowly approach where he hides behind the booth. Besides, Claude has Petra watching over him, and she’d never let anything get past her. Unless—well, unless they got past her. But that’s improbable beyond belief. The chances of that happening are so slim that Dimitri shouldn’t even be considering it, but he supposes that’s just how the human brain is wired, and—

The person clears their throat all of a sudden, and Dimitri freezes. It’s silent for another moment, before:

“Uh, is anyone there?”

The voice sounds distorted and a little nervous from where he sits behind the booth, and Dimitri wrinkles his nose at the odd familiarity; perhaps it’s someone he used to know. He almost forgets to reply until he hears the telltale tapping of impatient feet.

“Yes, there is. Is there something you would like to confess?”

“No duh,” the voice—he decides it’s a guy, although something tells him he _knows_ who this is, and should be recognizing it—says gruffly, and Dimitri rolls his eyes at nothing. “I know it’s… fairly late, but there’s some stuff I’d like to say. _Without_ your input, or any sort of prayer, or whatever else you have to offer.”

Okay. Dimitri can do that. He’d probably feel more comfortable doing that instead of offering empty prayers he isn’t even sure he believes in himself. “Alright, go ahead.”

“Okay. This is a long story, so sorry in advance. Or whatever.” The guy takes a deep breath, and Dimitri realizes just who it is belatedly as he starts, “I have—I _had_ this friend, once upon a fucking time.”

Dimitri knows who this is. He knows who this is. And he knows who he’s talking about, and his heart leaps out of his mouth immediately.

_Karma… is the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences. Destiny and fate is inescapable… what goes around will always come around. The good is the good, and the bad will be the bad. What determines the side of good and bad one gets is their actions and their karmic life force._

Claude is the one to take Dimitri in and under his wing, an old friend who reconnected with him one month after Dimitri sees it fit to leave. Somehow, he’s always been able to see straight through him; at least, that’s what Dimitri thinks. There’s still a flicker of question in Claude’s gaze whenever he comes to check in on him in his safehouse (a small studio apartment in the far south of Fhirdiad) and sees Dimitri sitting at his couch, the TV off even as he continues staring off into dark nothingness. Claude makes sure to leave some food out for him once he realizes Dimitri isn’t going to answer to any of his inquiries, turning on his lamp for him as well. Those are the nights when Dimitri doesn't get any sleep, but that’s okay.

Claude has a couple of other people who help him out with this whole _taking other people in_ thing. There’s Petra, who majors in statistics at Garreg Mach University and also acts as Dimitri’s personal bodyguard, and Hilda, who studies political science and brings his groceries for him as much as Dimitri pleads for her not to, because it’s not as though he’s some top-secret government official, or a flat-out criminal. Hilda cheerfully ignores his complaints and tells him it’s Marianne who buys the actual stuff, but he doubts it by the way she constantly frowns at the receipts.

The gist of it is, Dimitri is the heir to one of the biggest corporations in Faerghus, and somewhere between growing up rich and growing up without a father, he cracks under the pure oppressive pressure of life. He likes to think he wasn’t built for the real world in the first place. That there’s something wrong with him, and that’s why he can never seem to recognize himself when he looks into the mirror—and not because he looks different, with his new medical eyepatch and long, unkempt hair. 

But this story—the one an old friend wants to tell—has nothing to do with this, the aftermath of the metaphorical fire Dimitri set to his old, well-rehearsed fake of a life. It has nothing to do with the aftermath, and everything to do with the beginning. The thought of it scares him so badly that for days afterward, he will lie awake in his bed, thinking over words spoken with a deep, musical voice. A voice that haunts him for the rest of his life, no matter what he does.

**exit one, highway 100**

The sentence is simple. 

“Sometimes I wonder if I was built for him.”

The memory goes like this:

Dimitri is fourteen years old. They’re at Sylvain’s seventeenth birthday party, celebrating a decade and seven years of what Ingrid jokingly coins _A terrible mistake_ (at this, Dimitri remembers Sylvain rolling his eyes even as something in his eyes darkened; but perhaps that was just the sun hiding behind the clouds for a few moments).

The thing about Sylvain is that he lives way north up on Gautier lands, and he’s also extremely rich. Maybe not as rich as Dimitri, but he’s certainly rich enough to hold a party at one of his father’s many properties with just him, Dimitri, Ingrid and Felix. Their assigned chaperone is Felix’s dad, who stays with them for the first fifteen minutes before leaving to take a business call, and the first thing Sylvain does is drag them out to the backyard.

It’s less of a backyard and more of a forest all belonging to Sylvain’s father. Speaking of which—“Sylvain, where’s your dad?” Dimitri asks.

Sylvain doesn't turn around from where he continues jogging down the field. “Eh. He’s on a business trip.”

Ingrid frowns, crossing her arms. “Your dad is _always_ on a business trip, Syl.”

Sylvain snorts. “I mean, that’s how it just is.”

If Dimitri focuses, something feels wrong as they fool around practicing out on the grass, the bright spring of May drawing up strings of flowers that everything more lively. Off, like he’s in a dream, and he’s about to wake up. He can hear the birds singing in the distance and the crunch of Felix’s feet on a few chips of wood on the ground is clear in his mind, and yet he cannot feel his own heartbeat.

When he turns around to look at Felix, the younger boy’s form is fuzzy in his mind’s eye. It blurs into someone older, and his caramal eyes blink owlishly at him when Dimitri continues to stare.

“Is there something wrong, Dima?” Felix asks. His voice is higher-pitched than Dimitri knows with youth, but the way his mouth curves into a frown makes him seem much older than he actually is.

“It’s nothing,” Dimitri says instinctively. 

They fool around until evening starts to creep into the sky and Sylvain claims he’s tired, stretching and then immediately grabbing Ingrid by the hand to bring her back inside. 

But the point of it doesn't have much to do with Sylvain's birthday party, in the way they played together that day and ate the sweet tiramisu Sylvain's always been obsessed with that night. In fact, it has nothing to do with Sylvain and everything to do with Dimitri and Felix, because the day after Sylvain's birthday is when Glenn dies in a knifefight that shouldn't have targeted him in the first place. It has everything to do with the way Felix sits there as Rodrgue tiredly relays the information before the young boy storms out. It has everything to do with the fact that these people were targeting Dimitri, and there's nothing he could do about it. 

Felix closes himself off completely. This is the proverbial start to everything, because this is also when Dimitri gets into his first fight, and this is when his father dies, and this is when—this is when things become fragmented and loose and broken, and neither of them know how to pick up the pieces and start putting them back together.

They miss this exit because they're young and foolish and shattered.

“Hey,” is what Claude will say when Dimitri steps into his apartment. He’ll be sitting on a barstool at a countertop, and Dimitri won’t meet his eyes. “Petra took you home with no trouble?”

“Yes, she did,” Dimitri will say. His voice will sound hollowed out, deeper than normal because of the potion Claude gives him to distort his voice, and his heart will feel like an empty cavity. Claude will watch him with careful eyes, but he won’t ask questions. Dimitri won’t get any sleep that night.

**exit two, highway 145**

The sentence is said with a halting voice, like he doesn't know how to phrase it correctly and came with the mindset of winging all of it anyway.

“I've never—you know, I never hated him. And I was never one hide from my own emotions, despite what everyone used to think.”

The memory goes like this:

Junior year of high school at Garreg Mach, Dimitri thinks, is absolutely brutal. There's something about the amount of time he spends at the fencing training grounds and the private school's library being ridiculously disproportionate to how much time he manages to spend eating and resting that starts wearing him down after only a few months. And it's not only him—Ingrid looks perpetually exhausted, always poring over her own homework, and Sylvain's started to lose even more of the light in his eyes, so he seems like a hollowed-out version of his own self. If Dimitri were more observant of his own friends, he'd probably think something along the lines of _Maybe he was hollowed out the entire time_ , but he doesn't have time to think about such things.

It's mostly just stress and isolation, Dimitri thinks.

He plans on his birthday coming and going, because semester finals are rapidly barreling towards all of them and he can't find it in him to be excited about the fact that he's turning seventeen. When December 20th rolls around, he locks himself in his room to study for his physics final. It goes well at first, because the only person to visit him is Dedue, who leaves him breakfast and says “Happy birthday,” in his low smooth baritone. Dimitri smiles at him, thanks him, and then leaves the food to go cold on his bed as he continues studying at his desk.

It is a little depressing, if he thinks about it. It's his seventeenth birthday—he's one year away from him becoming an adult, and yet all he has to surround him are his lonely thoughts and his ghosts as his companions. All the people who, essentially, have died _for_ him in some way or another, because Dimitri has had one thousand eyes on him since the very beginning. If he were a superstitious person he'd swear he could see the dark strings of black at the edge of his vision as though his demons were right there and had every intent of taking him over slowly—but he _isn't_ superstitious, he has to remind himself.

It's an awful cacophony of thoughts in silence, to sit there and attempt to study for fifteen minutes before inevitably falling victim to his head for another twenty. Oddly enough, though, it passes the day well, and soon it's getting dark with early evening. What time is it, six in the afternoon? His vision is getting blurry, and Dimitri pushes himself away from the desk, no longer comprehending whatever velocity equation he'd been looking at.

As if the universe understands his predicament and only wishes to make it worse, someone knocks on Dimitri's door, and he groans quietly too himself. It's _too late_. His head hurts, and he turns off his lamp. Just when he'd fallen into the sort of routine where time could _pass_ easily and he didn't have to worry...

Two knocks, this time more insistent. Dimitri huffs out a breath and then says, “You can come in.”

The door opens slowly, letting light in to his dark room, and Dimitri almost wants to curl away from it. It's silent, and Dimitri doesn't lift his head from where he's got his palm pressed to his eyes in what people like to say soothes headaches but does nothing for him. Maybe he's a glutton for punishment, he thinks sluggishly, because it pushes the pain further into his head. It feels like the pain's curling into tendrils of smoke and if he tilts his head just so it'll rush out through his ears and leave him _alone_ and—

“Hell,” a low voice says, and Dimitri freezes. “You look _terrible_ , boar. Is this how you plan on living the rest of your life? Like an unhinged rat?”

He hasn't spoken much to Felix since they became students at Garreg Mach, despite having all the same classes. It's partly because neither of them really speak to anyone in the first place, but their friendship is so fragmented that at this point Dimitri wonders if they were ever friends in the first place.

A self-deprecating lie, he knows. He and Felix _used to be friends_. Whatever they are is the exact opposite, but he digresses.

“I'm not doing anything,” Dimitri croaks out, and Felix makes a quiet, disgusted noise deep in his throat.

“You even sound pathetic. Do you hear yourself?” His words cut and make Dimitri bleed, but not in the way where Dimitri feels like he has to shut himself out over the din of his voice. Actually, he thinks to himself, Felix's voice is sort of soothing. It's low and smooth even as it sharpens into a metaphorical dagger, and Dimitri suddenly finds himself feeling very, very tired.

“Sorry,” Dimitri says. “I just—wanted to get some studying in.”

“On your birthday,” Felix says so, so knowingly. “Interesting. What a coincidence, unless you didn't know it was your birthday.”

Dimitri stays silent, and Felix sighs. “You're so irritating beyond belief, you animal. Ingrid was worried about you. She wants you to eat dinner with us.”

Dimitri doesn't feel very hungry. “I don't feel very hungry.”

“Shut the hell up,” Felix hisses, and he's stepping into the room because the light's obstructed by his form, and it gives Dimitri the slightest relief. “I'll ask again: do you hear yourself? No,” he mutters, “of course you don't. You—you're so stuck in your own reality, aren't you?”

When Dimitri doesn't reply, Felix growls quitely, and then says, “Get up. We're going to eat dinner.”

Felix doesn't have to grab him by the arm and lug him out for Dimitri to leave, because he gets up partly of his own accord and walks out after Felix. There is a moment where Dimitri steps over the threshold between the deep darkness of his room and the bright lights of the hallway where Dimitri finds his gaze sliding over to Felix. He can't tell if that worried look in Felix's eyes for a moment is one of reality or something of his own imagination because a sharp pain stabs him between the eyes at the movement and he has to squeeze them tight.

He sways. Felix grabs him by the shoulder and steadies him for a moment. Dimitri doesn't open his eyes as Felix leads him down the hallway with the ghost of a hand on his back, but the feeling of his hand on Dimitri's shoulder burns like a hot fire rivalling the cold of Faerghus in which he grew up—another imprint to haunt him.

The next day, he will get a letter from Ingrid.

It will feel odd to have mail delivered to him, because Claude has been adamant about his privacy ever since his disappearance made it to news media. It will scare him, before Claude tells him that he personally delivered the letter himself. The letter will say a million things in several pages but the only thing he will think about is `even Felix worries about you, you know. It must sound like a shock, but he cares, and he worries. He's in Southern Fhirdiad right now, and we haven't heard from him.`

He will think—that he's ruining the life of every single person he's come into contact with. That everyone revolves around _him_ when they shouldn't. He is no sun to their individual planets. He isn't even a planet himself. 

**exit three, highway 200**

The sentence is slow, and knowing. Felix lets each word fall from his lips like rainwater down a exit pipe and out into the ground, and by now Dimitri's thinking one thing—if he were capable of such emotion, perhaps he'd be crying right now.

“He's here somewhere, and I won't stop until I find him.”

And the recent memory goes like this:

His backpack is premium, and probably ridiculously expensive—but he wasn't the one who bought it, so it's easy to ignore this fact. All the money in the world can't help the amount of clothes he wants to shove into the backpack, though, so Dimitri leaves everything but a few of his books and only a few clothes, and his toothbrush and deodorant. His phone sits on his desk, and Dimitri leaves it there on purpose as he tiptoes his way out of his and Sylvain's shared apartment.

Fhirdiad is freezing cold in the January air, and Dimitri is already starting to wish that he brought his jacket. The streets are mostly empty at this time of night and cars pass by every so often, and Dimitri hails a taxi, thanking whatever gods exist for the heater blasting as he hurriedly gets in.

In all honesty, a piece of him was starting to wonder just when he'd get around to leaving. Things have been pushing him to the brink slowly, in the way Ashe checks up on him and reads him his favorite books while Dimitri stares up at the ceiling and wishes he knew how to sleep again. In the way Sylvain attempts to coax him out of his room sometimes to grab dinner, although it never works. In the way Felix starts to visit less and less, although logically this is valid—finals have hit hard and Felix needs to go home and pay his father an obligatory visit, anyway. Yet it all seems to leave an empty cavity in his chest where life withers and the only thing that seems to be able to grow there is an irrepressible ache.

Nothing like going on a self-reflection journey by physically running away from his own problems, he thinks.

It's disturbingly easy to erase any evidence of his existence from his friend's lives. These are people who have known him for years, and yet he manages to up and leave without any trouble. No Sylvain in the living room watching him carefully and practically waiting to call Ingrid if he has to. Annette isn't around to wrangle him into failing spectacularly at a new baking recipe she'd gotten from Mercedes (who, of course, had gotten it successfully). No Ashe to politely inquire about where he's going. No Dedue to follow after him silently and offer his criticisms if need be. No Felix to bang down the walls surrounding his heart until Dimitri complies with his wishes, because Dimitri could never truly say no to his old friend.

That's the hardest part, Dimitri thinks. Knowing you're in love with someone who holds so much against you and yet watches over you all the same. It's an oppressive emotion, because Dimitri knows he'll never be able to give back to Felix what Felix has given him. 

“This the hotel you wanted?” The taxi driver says, looking bored as he glances at him through the mirror. Dimitri doesn't even look out the window as he nods, silently handing him his money and an extra large tip. He ignores the way the driver's eyes widen—from sudden recognition or shock at the money, Dimitri doesn't care to know—and he steps out of the taxi, listening to the engine's noise get quieter and quieter as he drives away. 

The hotel is dingy-looking. It will have to do, Dimitri thinks. _You don't deserve any better_ , a quiet voice tries to breathe into the crevices of his mind, but Dimitri steels himself and ignores it as best as he can. There will be no more of that, he tells himself. He will change, and on his own.

`you were brokenhearted and the world was too`

“My father and his father had us playing together since the very beginning,” Felix says. “I'm sure that as soon as I was born my father put me right next to him and thought, _perfect_. There was nothing wrong with that as a kid, of course. I grew up with him and two other friends, but I always felt especially close to him. We'd get into arguments every now and then and I always lost my shit whenever he beat me at fencing practices or martial arts sparring, but it was whatever. I'd... cry it out like a little kid and then we'd forget about it.

“But—sometimes I wonder if I was built for him. My father was close with his, you see. A loyal friend like no other. He'd see us playing with each other and smile and every time my older brother played around with him he'd smile too. I was told that I would be his best friend no matter what. I feel like—well, you lose your individual sense of self after a while of it, I suppose. And I didn't notice because I was a _kid_ , but it got more and more obvious as I got older.

“My older brother died when I was fourteen. There was a knife fight outside of my friends house that was supposed to target _him_ and not my brother, but he just happened to be there—and he’s always been hotheaded, so he tried to fight back. It turns out there was an entire ploy against their family—you know, you’ve probably heard of this story already. It was everywhere on the news. The point of it is that my father told me then that I’d have to step up some more, and it was all so—”

This is where his voice breaks.

“My father was never _bad_. I think we had some awful misunderstandings that didn’t get resolved because of the both of us, but I feel terrible about it sometimes. I've never—you know, I never hated him. And I was never one hide from my own emotions, despite what everyone used to think. And I don't _hate_ Dim—my friend, although I am pretty peeved that he disappeared and didn't tell me, and we've had to keep searching for him for so damn long now.”

 _I'm_ sorry, Dimitri wants to say, but he shuts his mouth and keeps quiet against the shock of his friend's voice after so long.

“And my father is dead, too.”

This is a quiet moment where Dimitri nearly caves and breaks through the wall veiling them of each other to do—well, he doesn't know what he'd do, but he knows the knowledge of Rodrigue's chest hits him heavy and right between the eyes.

“I never got the chance to apologize,” Felix whispers. “I punched him in the face once, when I was little. I barely remember what it was over, but I never got to say sorry. I never got to tell him that I _did_ care, but he was just too much of an idiot for me to say it to his face. I never got to apologize to Glenn for all the times we fought over stupid shit, and every time I lost against him. I never got to apologize to _him_ , because I'm always going to be stubborn and if we started apologizing to each other we'd never fucking stop, but _still_. You understand.”

Dimitri does. He understands.

“But he's here somewhere. Ingrid found a lead. He's here somewhere, and I'll find him.”

For once, Dimitri realizes that he wouldn't mind being found. Being found, and brought back to the arms of people who genuinely care about him, even though he feels as though he doesn't deserve it. Felix doesn't have much to say after, as he gets up and makes to leave. The light is dim and the window has nothing to offer but a sliver of the crescent moon's light, and Dimitri says, “I am praying for you.”

“Don't pray for me,” Felix says, and if Dimitri pays careful attention he'd be able to hear the undertone of a sneer in his voice. “You probably have other people to worry about.”

He pauses for a moment, and then—“Pray for my friend, will you?”

 _My_ _friend_. How Dimitri longed to hear those words come out of Felix's mouth in relation to _him_ when they were younger. Nine years of this push-and-pull, and it still settles an ache into his chest to hear Felix being kind. “I will. Thank you for your time.”

The door shuts, and Dimitri is alone. It's a kind of solitude he'd be grateful for just hours ago, but now it leaves him feeling bare and vulnerable, like someone is watching and waiting for him to take the exit and leave this time loop of pain and hopelessness he's been living in for his entire life. 

**exit four in 3/4 miles, highway 1**

He _really_ needs to start wearing jackets more often.

Thankfully, though, the convenience store's heaters are on blast, courtesy of Ignatz, who usually takes the late night shifts and constantly complains about how cold it is. It's right off of the apartment block, and even though Claude is careful about Dimitri being seen he typically doesn't mind Dimitri leaving on quiet nights like these, even if both Petra and Hilda aren't around. Ignatz looks up from his book and waves hello when Dimitri steps in, and Dimitri gives him a grateful nod. He has to resist the urge to give into his primal college student urges that have yet to wear off and head over to the snack aisle, steeling himself and heading towards where the milk and juice is. He grabs small bucket to put things in as he takes some milk out with every intent to restock his kitchen with healthy things this time, unlike the last he'd visited (He gave into The Urges. It didn't go well).

He's halfway through his midnight grocery run when a sharp inhale of breath stops him. Dimitri is about to turn around and give the person an irritated look, because it's _nighttime_ , for god's sake, and he really does not have the energy to deal with anyone or anything right now, and—

“Dimitri?”

He says it cautiously. Dimitri's name slips off his tongue almost musically, tinged with shock and hesitance and something Dimitri can't quite place, and when he turns around he's right there.

Felix is right there. His golden eyes glitter under the artificial lights of the convenience store as he searches his face, and he's wearing an oversized hoodie. Dimitri spends a great deal of time wondering whether or not this particular sweater belonged to him or Sylvain, because Felix always used to steal from them both without preamble. He's wearing jeans with tattered holes in them. The designer kind. He has rings on both his hands. His lips are parted as he stares at Dimitri, lips chapped and eyes wide and arms stiffly shoved into his pockets, and for a brief moment Dimitri has to pinch himself discreetly to make sure this is real. 

“You—” Felix starts, just as Dimitri says, “ _Felix_. My god.”

“You look...” Felix seems hesitant, like anything he says will break him. “You look different. The eye patch is new.” And then— “Where the _fuck_ have you been, boar?”

He doesn't know what he's expecting, if he's being honest. Maybe some sort of release of emotion in the form of Felix punching Dimitri in the chest repeatedly while Dimitri stands there, unflinching like when they were kids. Felix just stands there, vibrating with obvious anger even as his lips twist with something like relief. “Do you know how _long_ I've been—how much you've—you _fucking_ idiot?”

“That,” Dimitri breathes haltingly, “is a very good question.”

 _“Fuck_ ,” is all Felix says, before he's taking the bag of potato chips in his own bucket and throwing it at Dimitri. It bounces off his chest and falls to the ground in a crackly heap, and Dimitri stares at it blankly. “Boar, have you been here the entire time?”

A part of him wants to lie just so Dimitri can continue to hide. He could leave, he knows, and move somewhere else .Claude wouldn't mind the extra work if he really needed it. Petra and Hilda and Marianne and Ignatz wouldn't mind either, it'd just be—

It'd just be him continuing this drive down into nothingness, he realizes. And then Dimitri realizes that this can't happen anymore, this stepping of his own two feet towards the edge of a cliff before he takes twenty steps back. “I have,” Dimitri says honestly, and Felix's eyes narrow.

“You're telling me the entire time that I haven't seen you, and yet I've been here for _weeks_ looking for you? You've got to be kidding me.” Felix looks visibly angry, his fists clenched, and Dimitri finds it so unimaginably soothing in it's familiarity that it hurts. “Will you _stop looking at me like that?_ ”

“How am I looking at you?” Dimitri asks, genuinely confused, and Felix huffs.

“You know what? Whatever. I just—Ingrid and Sylvain will want to know,” the younger man breathes, and Dimitri blinks as he realizes what Felix is trying to do as he takes his phone out of his back pocket. “Dedue, too. You're a fucking _asshole_ , by the way, and he went off looking for you.”

Sudden worry eats at his chest. “Is—is he alright?”

“Yeah, he's fine,” Felix says almost dismissively, but Dimitri doesn't miss the way he glances up at him for a brief moment, trying to gauge his reaction. “We were all worried sick. You should've seen Annette and Ingrid afterwards. Even Sylvain lost so much sleep looking around for you. He wouldn't turn the news on for weeks because he didn't want to see everyone talking about you.”

“I'm sorry,” Dimitri breathes, because he is. Felix's admissions make him hurt more than he thought it would, and Felix looks up from his phone to glare at him.

“You're only _sorry_ if you stop running,” he says, and he sounds unbearably tired. They're in a convenience store, Dimitri thinks. This is all so ridiculous that he doesn't know whether to cry or laugh and then realizes that he's probably making steps in the right direction if he's capable of doing either of the two. If he can look at himself in the mirror off to the side of the aisle. If he and Felix can hold eye contact for more than, say, twenty seconds, because Felix never could in the first place. If Dimitri can remember all of this and more.

“You're always in your own head,” Felix says, effectively snapping him out of his own head, and Dimitri blinks.

“I'm sorry.”

“Stop all your damn apologies,” he mutters. The sleeves of his sweater are long and curl over his fingers, and he stares up at Dimitri with something like conviction. “They serve no purpose.”

“No,” Dimitri says emphatically. “Felix, I'm—I'm so sorry. For all the pain I've caused you and everyone.” His voice is shaking. “I never meant to hurt anyone, I just—so much has happened, and it all feels so broken, and I just wish I could go back and change it all.”

“That's the thing, Dimitri.” Felix purses his lips. “You can't change anything that happened. I'm just asking you to stop living in your own head all the damn time. To _open_ your goddamn eyes already, for fuck's sake. Do you understand me?”

“I wish I could,” Dimitri replies as honestly as he can, and Felix sighs.

“I suppose that can't be helped. It'll take time.” This is the softest he's ever heard Felix speak. It shocks him and sets his nerves alight. “But don't think you're getting away with just—running off like that. And _don't_ you dare think you'll get away with running away ever again. I still can't believe I found you here, of all places. You're so pathetic, you know that?”

Now this, Dimitri thinks, is something he can give a definitive answer to. “I know.”

“Fucking—I should've anticipated that.”

Dimitri laughs. It's the first time he's laughed in a _while_ , and he wonders if he's going crazy. “Felix, I missed you.”

He doesn't miss the light flush on Felix's cheeks. “Oh, shut up. Don't get all sweet on me now, that won't get you anywhere.”

“We'll see,” Dimitri hums, and he contemplates reaching out to Felix for a hug. And then he steps away from the thought, because anyone touching him would most likely still send him into a fit of nausea. This, he will work on. They buy their respective items and then Felix drags him out of the convenience store with his fingers pinching Dimitri's sleeve carefully when Dimitri flinches away at first without so much as a glance at Ignatz, who frowns at the both of them confusedly. Claude can explain it to him later, Dimitri thinks to himself as Felix glares at him.

“You're going to come back with me,” Felix says in a voice that suggests there are no other options, as though this is the easiest thing in the world. Maybe it _is_ this easy. “You'll come back with me, and we'll start all over.”

In reality, Dimitri thinks, they've been barreling down the same damn highway together for who knows how long at this point—maybe it's been their entire lives. They missed their respective exits miles ago, and he doesn't feel one hundred percent sure about it just yet (and maybe he never will), but there's something in the way cars continue to drive past them. In the way Felix's phone dings with text message notifications and yet he pays it no mind. In the way the chill shakes him to his bones but doesn't stop just so he can stand there and keep reminiscing about his past and all of his individual failures. Felix looks at him expectantly, and Dimitri lets himself stand a little taller. This a new beginning. Felix doesn't offer his hand as he starts down the street in the opposite direction of his apartment complex. Dimitri isn't consumed by his demons as he follows.

**Author's Note:**

> happy belated dimitri's birthday, and a merry christmas to all who celebrate it <3 thank you for reading, + comments/kudos are always appreciated.
> 
> the original prompt went along the lines of "dimitri's hiding out at a local church and felix is the nice-ish young man who does confessional often" and let me say first of all that it was originally going to be a light/humorous fic wherein felix confesses about stuff that people objectively Probably Wouldn't Confess to a Priest About, but i think i see dimilix as like.... they don't fit perfectly into each other/they weren't BUILT for each other but a lot of the trauma they go through (or dimitri's at least) is something they share as a burden, and everything they've been through they've technically been through together; whether it's the tragedy or rodrigue's death or etc etc. you get my point!


End file.
